ESA and the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) will be co-hosting, in cooperation with NASA and the International Mars Exploration Working Group (IMEWG), an International Conference on 9 and 10 July in the Auditorium of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris* to discuss the next step in the exploration of Mars. We are still collecting data under NASA’s Phoenix, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Exploration Rover and Mars Odyssey missions, as well as under ESA’s Mars Express mission, as we prepare for even more exciting missions to come, notably NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory and ESA’s ExoMars. Mars exploration is continuing at a steady pace and future missions will integrate scientific payloads and technologies that will eventually serve the ultimate goal of carrying out a manned mission to Mars. The international community has for a long time agreed that the next imperative step, one which will exponentially increase our knowledge and understanding of the Red Planet and its environment, is a Sample Return Mission.

International planning is under way to reinvigorate plans for a Mars sample return mission, with researchers assessing science priorities and strategies to maximize the scientific output from such an undertaking. Over the last several years, an armada of orbital and surface missions has revealed Mars to be surprisingly more complex than once thought, imbued with a variety of distinct environments — each of value in terms of possible scientific payback given a sample return effort. Mars samples returned to state-of-the-art Earth laboratories are considered by many to be the only way to unravel a host of unresolved questions about the red planet. A sample return mission also is viewed by many as a key tool to help space agencies prepare for future human expeditions to Mars.

China and Russia plan to launch a joint mission to Mars in 2009 to scoop up rocks from the red planet and one of its moons, a Chinese scientist said on Wednesday. Russia will launch the spacecraft, while China will provide the survey equipment to carry out the unmanned exploration, Ye Peijian, a senior scientist at the Chinese Academy of Space Technology, told a meeting in Beijing, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The mission will be another step in China's ambitious program to jump to the forefront of space exploration.

The Russian Cabinet on Tuesday approved a nine-year government program to expand its space programs, backing the ongoing development of the new Clipper spacecraft as well as building Russia's segment of the international space station. In its statement, the Federal Space Agency did not say how much funding the programs would receive. But it said the government plans include a new project called the Phobos-Grunt, which will be sent to the Martian moon of Phobos to collect soil samples. By the end of 2006, the space agency will begin work on preparations for a manned trip to Mars.

Future hunts for past or present life on Mars, hauling back to Earth samples of martian rock and soil, as well as setting the stage for a human voyage to the red planet is taking on a decidedly European look. European Space Agency (ESA) officials are taking steps to shift into high gear the building of the ExoMars robotic rover mission. The lander would be launched in 2011, likely onboard a Soyuz Fregat 2b booster from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.

NASA’s Mars program could undergo major alternation, driven by budgetary and technical issues, as well as science goals. “We’ve been getting inputs, advice, actions items…from the road mapping teams,” said Doug McCuistion, Mars Exploration Program Director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. “Nothing is finalized at this point. There have been no final decisions made or, frankly, any interim decisions made as yet.”

The Aurora mission first includes a return capsule to be launched in 2011 and put into orbit around Mars. Two years later, a second spacecraft carrying a descent module and ascent vehicle will be launched on a similar trajectory. During its final approach to Mars, the descent module and ascent vehicle will be released and make a controlled landing on the planet. Carrying its precious samples, the ascent vehicle will later lift off from the surface, then rendezvous with the first craft. After receiving the canister loaded with Martian rocks, it will return to Earth.

NASA's Spirit Rover has just completed a long hard slog across difficult Martian terrain to reach the Columbia hills. The short journey of just a couple of kilometres has taken Spirit months. Imagine if it could thoroughly analyze an area and then just pick up and fly somewhere new? NASA is considering a proposal from Pioneer Astronautics, which envisions a vehicle that could land on Mars, refuel with local materials, and then fly hundreds of kilometres to explore; repeating this process over and over again - the Martian Gashopper Aircraft.

Five spacecraft are circling Mars and creeping across its ruddy surface, looking for traces of long-gone waters and signs that the cold, arid planet may once have been hospitable to life. The robotic martian invasion - three orbiters and two six-wheeled rovers - has already uncovered strong evidence that water once flowed on Mars and is now locked in subsurface ice. But big questions about water on Mars remain. When did it flow? How long did it last? How much was there? Where did it come from? Where did it go? Perhaps the most tantalizing question: Were there long-lived watery environments where microbial life could have gained a foothold?

Epsom-like salts believed to be common on Mars may be a major source of water there, say geologists at Indiana University Bloomington and Los Alamos National Laboratory. In their report in this week's Nature, the scientists also speculate that the salts will provide a chemical record of water on the Red Planet. "The Mars Odyssey orbiter recently showed that there may be as much as 10 percent water hidden in the Martian near-surface," said David Bish, Haydn Murray Chair of Applied Clay Mineralogy at IU and a co-author of the report. "We were able to show that under Mars-like conditions, magnesium sulfate salts can contain a great deal of water. Our findings also suggest that the kinds of sulfates we find on Mars could give us a lot of insight into the history of water and mineral formation there."

Russia is planning to launch a spacecraft to one of Mars’ moons as early as 2009, the nation’s Federal Space Agency announced. The Federal Space Program is currently developing the Phobos-Grunt project,“ the Interfax news agency quoted the agency’s director, Anatoly Perminov, as saying. ”The flight… is planned for 2009.“

The UK is almost certainly going back to Mars and is set to become a major player in Europe's efforts to explore the Solar System. Science minister Lord Sainsbury says the country will pay the £5m interim subscriptions needed to maintain a premier place in the Aurora programme. Aurora sets out a vision for Europe to visit the planets with robotic probes and perhaps one day even with humans.

NASA’s Genesis sample capsule not only stirred up dust and dirt when it crash landed in Utah last week, but also debate concerning the return to Earth of future extraterrestrial samples – specifically from Mars. The Genesis probe, along with the homeward bound Stardust spacecraft carrying bits of a comet and interstellar particles, serve as precursor missions to snag, bag, and lug back to Earth select pieces of Martian real estate. NASA engineers and scientists have been grappling for decades with methods, procedures, and the price tag for robotically returning Mars samples.

Those twin robots hard at work on Mars have transmitted teasing views that reinforce the prospect that microbial life may exist on the red planet. Results from NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers are being looked over by a legion of planetary experts, including a scientist who remains steadfast that his experiment in 1976 proved the presence of active microbial life in the topsoil of Mars. "All factors necessary to constitute a habitat for life as we know it exist on current-day Mars," explained Gilbert Levin, executive officer for science at Spherix Incorporated of Beltsville, Maryland.

Texas A&M University and NASA are teaming up to bring new levels of planetary protection against forward contamination of other worlds from our space probes. The team hopes to sterilize future hardware using a well-known technique called electron beam irradiation.